Tuesday, May 05, 2015

Pronunciation CrISIS

March 24, 2014. An acclaimed cheap restaurant in Chicago’s Chinatown. Across a table of rice, crispy duck, and shrimp in mayonnaise sauce, Janet asks a question.

“So… How do you pronounce your last name?”

(I pronounce my last name)

“Oh, like ISIS?!”

It was a bummer of a realization, but I now own it. When I spoke to a high school class last month, I corrected the teacher’s pronunciation with Janet’s mnemonic. The class laughed and the teacher pronounced me correctly during when introducing me in the following hour.